Wednesday, April 20, 2005

My child is doing her best to make me WISH I had Alzheimers. Or a drinking problem. Anything to convince myself that I don't give a shit. But I DO give a shit and I want my daughter to one day become a well-rounded human being. One that doesn't live with me until she's 45.

How have I allowed myself to become manipulated by a six-year-old child? Why do I wish I could bribe her with things so she will behave in school instead of finding my and her teacher's weak point and using it to her advantage? Teachers are professionals in dealing with children, are they not? Yet, when I meet my daughter's teacher, she looks at me as if I have given birth to The Omen child.

The little dear is simply too clever for her age. This isn't something she was taught. Somehow, she knows instinctively how to get 'more bang for her buck' from each person she meets. Even people who admittedly don't like children will give her anything she asks for. She gets a twinkle in her eye and turns on that dimple and every adult around her turns into a puddle of goo. With me, she has learned when to try to charm me. If I'm in a good mood, she's a charmer. If I'm lecturing her on the importance of being a good student, she whines and gives me a guilt trip... explaining that it's simply too much trouble to listen to her teacher s-a-y t-h-e s-a-m-e t-h-i-n-g d-a-y a-f-t-e-r d-a-y.

It's no longer socially acceptable to spank children. I believe that's part of what is wrong with a lot of kids today. They don't need drugs for ADHD, they need a good swat to the pants. I RARELY spank my daughter because I learned when she was 2 that it's not a reliable deterrant. What I mean is, if you swat a kid even semi-regularly, they learn to ignore it so a parent has a choice... they can swat harder, or find an alternative.

At what point am I allowed to admit I've been beaten? When do I get to wave the white flag and say, "whelp, this kid's too much for me, somebody else take her for a spin." ?

Monday, April 18, 2005

I have a big yard with too many high-maintenance perennials and way too many freaking trees that drop leaves for me to rake.

It seems like Spring and Summer are a never-ending line of weeding and raking. Don't get me wrong, I love doing it but I wish I could get the weeds to stay away a little longer.

Two years ago I started adding landscape plastic to certain areas of the garden beds. I had never been a big fan of plastic over the ground but was feeling mighty desperate against the voracity of the weeds at that time. Cheap mulch was added over top of the plastic to keep it in place and make it look more like a garden and less like a garden with strips of black plastic running through it.

Yesterday I found that the weeds had invaded the mulch on top of the plastic strips and it was quite easy to lift large sections of the weeds to throw in the recycling bag. While this was loads of fun, I now have very little mulch left on the plastic and need to replace it.

For my hard work, I have the honor of only 5 bags for yard-waste recycling and a very pretty crescent moon shaped sunburn on my lower back where my top rode up revealing my pasty-white skin.

I was feeling a bit lazy Saturday and got absolutely nothing done in the yard or inside the house except to fix the drain pipe leading out of the garbage disposal. The connection decided to let loose just as I was sending the remains of CheesePuff's breakfast oatmeal down the disposal. I have no idea why I didn't notice the stream of water pouring out next to my feet, but I didn't until the oatmeal pond had flowed in front of the dishwasher, crossed over in front of the fridge and was heading for the basement door. I will say, I'm thankful it didn't reach under any appliances... I wouldn't want to add moving them to mop underneath to the chaos I was already facing (since CheesePuff chose that moment to come running to the kitchen to see what I was up to).

Kids, husbands, dogs (I don't have a dog, but it sounded good)... they all have spectacular timing don't they? Always coming in the room at the most embarassing time.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

I woke up this morning from dreaming about the metamorphosism blog I had read. Although instead of Mig interviewing the band, it was I. The band was attempting to teach me how to write a song and making it rhyme while still sounding cool. Apparently they failed since the line I woke up thinking about was, "Darling Linda, do you want some porridge?... I have it in storage." Frightening.